Happy Birthday Mr. Shakespeare

Today commemorates, approximately, the 450th birthday of William Shakespeare and so to mark the occasion I have chosen to revisit a piece of text that first made me realise just quite what a genius he was. I was fifteen and reading Romeo and Juliet as part of my GCSEs and decided I'd do a little exercise in close reading. Never one to self edit, the result was a 3000 word monstrosity of coursework. Here I present a much revised, hopefully much shorter, and pretty irreverent commentary on one of the most famous exchanges in the play.

ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest hand,
                This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
                My lips two blushing Pilgrims ready stand,
                To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET: Good Pilgrim you do wrong your hand too much
              Which mannerly devotion shows in this,
               For saints have hands, that Pilgrims' hands do touch
               And palm to palm is holy Palmers' kiss.
ROMEO: Have not Saints lips and holy Palmers too?
JULIET: Ay Pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer
ROMEO: O then dear Saint, let lips do what hands do,
                They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
                                                         [Act 1, Scene 5]
And they snog.

Now everyone likes a good flirt but if you flirt with Shakespeare's words in your mouth well, heaven help your flirtee. But before we get to these words, let's get some context. Although with minimal dramatic licence most productions of R&J will have had them making googly eyes at each other before this exchange, the first important thing to note is that Romeo has already spotted Juliet, but she has not necessarily seen him. He's likened her to a 'snowy dove' among crows and foreshadowed her death by observing that she seems 'for earth too dear'. For him, Juliet is dazzling energy itself ('she doth teach the torches to burn bright') and this is in direct contrast to the darkness of Romeo who 'shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out/And makes himself an artificial light' (the 'artificial light' I think it's fair to assume, is a metaphor for Rosaline). Their love will consume them entirely- light annihilates the darkness as darkness annihilates the light. Their story is a juxtaposition of opposites and balance and it has already started.

Now just a note on the verse form and then I promise we'll get going. This is, when read in isolation, a sonnet. And a sonnet is traditionally one of the most trussed up of verse forms. This version is a classic Elizabethan version, written in iambic pentameter with a defined rhyme scheme. Which makes it a Mr-Darcy-in-a-wet-shirt sort of exchange. The structure means that we can all see exactly what's underneath, and it's hot: the sensuality is there clad in translucently restrictive garb. The regular, heart beat rhythm that ebbs and flows between the two characters dominates but there are a couple of heart-skippy moments: both of which up the ante that bit more. Shakespeare packs the sonnet with noun repetitions: 'saint', 'prayer', 'hands' but when the repeated word 'lips' crops up in line 9 the first de-dum that you would expect from an iambic line gets sort of squashed, and the heartbeat skips a beat. It does the same when Juliet says 'move' in line 13 and stops the flow of the line. Clever, eh?  

Now to the words. Romeo really goes for it doesn't he? To him, as I've already said, Juliet is other-worldly: the summary of his lines is basically: you are biblically hot, am I allowed to kiss you? He's ready to profane but once again Shakespeare balances this with doubt, and the hyperbole is tempered by the opening word 'If' and the coyly 'gentle sin'. On the other hand his lips are blushing with both doubt and arousal and you try saying 'smooth touch' without making a kissy face (you just tried it, didn't you. Adorable). So cards are very much on the table. Oh Mr. S, you are so cunning. But this is no peacock display: the ball is quite determinedly placed in Juliet's court. And she has yet to make her judgement.

'Good Pilgrim' are her first words. Good being a good sign, and a repetition of Romeo's description of himself making it clear that she's in on the joke, and she likes it. You know that people attracted to each other mirror each other's body language? Well, this is the verbal equivalent. Juliet immediately picks up on the imagery but neutralises it somewhat 'Saints have hands that Pilgrims' hands do touch': hey buddy, you've got hands, I've got hands. Get me off this pedestal a bit and let's do something with... hands. Flirty, sexy undertones but joining in the Saint/Pilgrim joke. Are these two made for each other or what? With this encouragement Romeo then decides to try it on a bit: 'Have not Saints lips..?', Juliet reciprocates 'Ay Pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer'.

So, if hands come together in prayer 'let lips do what hands do' says Romeo, ever the logician. Crunch time. Come of Jules, we're all rooting for you. 'Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake' she says. Alright Your Royal Coyness. She's brought the metaphor home and is not going anywhere, except to be kissed, the word 'move' ironically grounded mid-sentence by a comma. A hesitation, but crucially, she's has the deciding line, and she has given Romeo the divine right. 'Then move not' he says as he leans in and the entire audience go wobbly kneed, 'while my prayer's effect I take'.

If only this was the grand finale, eh? The curtain comes down and the world goes away with a happy heart. But the prologue has told us otherwise and it's already gone wrong as Juliet realises just after this exchange: 'my only love sprung from my only hate/Too early seen, unknown, and known too late' which, brutal though it is, is a phenomenally balanced line.

So like so many teenage infatuations, this post is over before it has barely begun. Despite that however, I hope you've enjoyed my little analysis: sad to say perhaps, but this is one of my absolutely favourite ways to spend my time. But for now I'll bid you adieu: I'm off to have a slice of cake in the great man's honour.